Software Development in the Real World

Microsoft Changing the “Game” in 2010

2010-01-07T16:55:54Z

Today’s CES Keynote presentation by Steve Ballmer really got me excited about where technology is headed. It was the second time Steve Ballmer was taking the stage to deliver the traditional Microsoft CES Keynote Address since Bill Gates stepped down from the role. Although things started slightly late due to a power outage, once the show was in full swing, I was glued to my seat.

Slate Devices

Traditional PC’s have been the ugly boxes you hide in a corner somewhere, and don’t want to display to people on purpose. Over the years cases have gotten better, sizes have gotten smaller, lights have been added, but overall they have stayed the same. Microsoft tried to push the envelope years ago with Tablet PC’s, but the hardware just wasn’t there yet. It looks like in 2010, Slate Devices are going to come fast and furious. Check out this beautiful demonstration of HP’s Windows 7 powered Slate Device that was shown today:

In fact, Microsoft next month is planning on unveiling its own slate device, the Microsoft Courier. The reason I love these devices is they have all the power of Windows 7, in a smaller form. If I could carry around a mobile device, and a Slate PC that ran Windows 7, I probably wouldn’t need a laptop. Check out the Microsoft Courier in this video:

Microsoft Project Natal

The reason I am so pumped about Project Natal is because it’s a total game changer. It will forever change the way we interact with computers. This means the way we interact with our Televisions, our games, movies, even telephones. Everything is about to change. If you listened closely to Robbie Bach, he explained that Microsoft literally hired rocket scientists to develop Natal, and they have been working on this for nearly 10 years. I can’t even begin to explain how many ripple effects this kind of innovation and technology is going to have on technology. Combine Natal with touch computing, the speak recognition research Microsoft has been doing for years, and all the devices that run Microsoft software in your life, and you have an extremely powerful game changing, life altering ecosystem of technology at your fingertips. Check out this video of Project Natal in action:

Natal leaves everything else out there in the dust. Sure there will be clones that come out after Natal’s launch, but nothing will be as unique as Natal and work as well. What the iPhone did for mobile devices, Project Natal will do for interaction and user interfaces. It will leave every company out there trying to either partner with Microsoft to make games for the XBOX 360, or use Natal’s patented technologies embedded on their televisions, blue-ray players, or other devices that want to kill remotes.

These were the two big announcements of the Microsoft CES Keynote this year and what got me extremely excited as a software developer and technology professional. I can’t wait to see the kind of tools we are going to be using to develop the software and the games that will be played and used on these new devices, and manipulated with these new Natural User Interface technologies.

Tech Days 2009

2009-12-12T17:34:13Z

Things have been super busy at Anvil Digital so all I’ve had time for is twitter these days. If you don’t follow me yet, make sure you add me http://www.twitter.com/miguelcarrasco as I will more than likely save blog posts for deep discussions and thoughts over the next year.

That said, if you are a Winnipeg Software Developer or IT Pro, make sure you sign up for Tech Days 2009. Time is almost up to sign up for this insane show packed with real world deep dive content! I will be presenting on Expression Blend 3.0, the world best user interface design application on the market. Don’t believe me? come check it out! With forty 200+ level sessions, Tech Days is the learning conference on both current technologies and new products like Windows 7, Exchange 2010 and much more.

Expression Blend for Developers

Not a designer? Overwhelmed by Expression Blend? Not a problem! We’ll show you how to use Expression Blend to create advanced and polished user interfaces for business applications, consumer applications, multimedia projects, games or anything in between. We’ll cover features of Expression Blend from a developer’s perspective and show how it works in tandem with Visual Studio throughout the development process. You’ll learn how to create professional-looking user interfaces and visual elements – even if you don’t think of yourself as an interface designer.

Silverlight, Twitter, Azure, WPF Mash Up

2009-08-05T07:03:14Z

I use twitter a lot these days (follow me here), which is why I haven’t been blogging as much these days. I was on the lookout for some cool new Twitter clients and ran into Sobees. For those that haven’t heard of it yet, its made up of a couple of different cutting edge technologies and really provides an amazingly slick user experience.

Taking a look at the Silverlight application, there are a ton of awesome features that I loved. As a software developer I was very impressed with the re-sizing ability, the way they work with Azure, and the integration between twitter and the technologies.

You can then of course install the Silverlight 3.0 application on your desktop, which leverages the Silverlight Out-of-Browser to accomplish this. And if that’s not enough, of course you can go to the Sobees.com web site and has them to download a WPF version of the application.

As you can see, the install process is really cool and easy. Within seconds you will have an application on your desktop that gives you complete control of the user experience.

Anyway, I don’t want to be too long winded, but make sure you check out the site and try out Sobees. You will love it.

Client Vendor Relationships in the Software Development World

2009-06-16T15:09:00Z

Working on a Software Development project and stuck trying to nail down exactly what you are building with the resources you have? Working with a client and trying to get them to pay for services, and keep getting “That’s too much money.” or “I’d like to get all that done, by December, but I only want to pay for one resource, not four.”.

This happens a lot in our world. I’m not sure why. It doesn’t seem to happen in other situations. But what if it did! And why does this happen in software development every day! Check out this awesome video on Client Vendor Relationships.

Leo Laporte Blows up at Michael Arrington

2009-06-07T00:03:34Z

Leo Laporte and Mike Arrington were talking about the Palm Pre on Twit.tv when Michael Arrington and Leo Laporte when at it. Michael was asking Leo Laporte whether or not he actually paid for it, and Leo got extremely upset. Anyway watch the video for yourself. I warn you it’ gets a little rough.

Personally I know first hand that when you get your ethics questioned, you say things you might regret later. However getting your ethics questioned is not fun, and really shouldn’t happen if you’ve proven yourself time and time again. Leo is one of those people that has never given a good review of anything if he hasn’t meant it.

He is one of my favourite tech personalities and a childhood hero like Mr. Rogers and Mr. Dress Up! He got a free Palm Pre to try for 7 days, and will probably go buy a new one anyway. Palm was smart and gave him one for a few days because they knew he might not be able to get one in time for his internet show. That’s all.

Google Loves Bing

2009-06-03T19:17:06Z

What does Google think of Bing I wonder? I started looking around and found this great picture of Bing running on a Dell at a Google office. In all seriousness, I am hoping Google has a response to Bing shortly. If they do, I expect another response from Microsoft quickly. This is how innovation happens. This is how great products are built, and this is how we can finally go away from typing something into a text box, only to be presented with a bunch of advertisers and a billion lines of boring text that might lead to me an answer 60% of the time.

Silverlight forced Flash into high gear and start fixing problems they have had for years. Bing will force Google back into innovation action! As we all know from the operating system wars, the browser wars, and countless more examples, Microsoft is in this one for the long haul. People wrote off the XBOX, and it’s one of the most successful gaming platforms out there with a ridiculous amount of subscribers. People wrote off the Zune, but have failed to realize that Zune HD will come, and keep coming, until it succeeds. People wrote off Vista, but what Microsoft learned from Vista, they have improved in Windows 7. I truly believe success is not measured by how hard you can hit. I believe it’s more accurately measured by how many times and how quickly you can actually get up after being knocked down. Microsoft is the champ at this. I hope Google is ready for this storm.

The nice thing is at the end of the day, consumers always win.

It’s Time to Bing and Decide

2009-06-03T18:57:03Z

Lookout Software Developers and Web Developers! Here come the Bing advertisements! Fresh from the television, check out the latest Microsoft Bing TV advertisement! The question is will they work? I kind of like it!

The reality is commercials and web advertising will get people to check out the search engine. However if the search engine doesn’t work well, or users have a bad experience, they will never come back. It’s all about the usability of the search engine really. Check out my article on MSDN to read my thoughts on Bing from a usability perspective. You should also check out David Wesst’s article on Bing.

Remember a great product supported by great advertising and great developer tools will do extremely well in our new real time world of software evolution. You need all three ingredients. If you are missing any one of these elements, the product will not succeed. The verdict still hasn’t fully arrived on Bing. I love it, but will the world?

Project Natal for XBOX 360

2009-06-02T00:00:51Z

As a software developer, I found this freaking ridiculously amazing. I’ve been hearing about the motion controller from Microsoft for some time, but I hadn’t really thought it would use no controllers at all. Hello Minority Report!

“Natal” will be able to track movements and sounds of multiple players at the same time, have built in facial recognition technology, and allow you to scan in objects to use in video games.

Anyway, the demo speaks for itself so you don’t need me to tell you it’s cool, watch it yourself! The software development possibilities are pretty much endless with a technology like this.

An Inside Look at Bing

2009-05-30T12:20:14Z

Bing is about to rock the search engine world next week. Find out why!

Microsoft will release Bing early next week, a search engine that finally has the potential to steal away some of Google’s dominating market share. I will be honest I was a little sceptical when I first heard about Bing (codename Kumo). In fact the original title for this article was going to be a lot more negative. But now that I have had the chance to use it for real world searches, I am impressed and have switched my search engine from Google to Bing. It was a no brainer. Bing won me over in about 10 minutes.

As I kept searching more and more, all these little features kept popping out at me! They weren’t so crazy that I was confused and wanting to go crawling back to Google. They were slight tweaks and magical changes that I’m sure were daunting from a back-end and logical programming perspective, but the magic is in how non intrusive and awesome the features are to the user. So what were these sleight of hand tricks that Microsoft was able to embed? Why did I finally switch my search engine from Google after nearly 8 years of being a loyal fan that promoted Google to nearly everyone that used something different?

Comparing Bing Search with Google

Winner: Bing

I just bought a new digital SLR camera, Nikon D60, and I wanted to download the manual to my laptop for reference purposes. So I went to Bing, and I searched Nikon D60. I was blown away at how nice the search results were laid out for me. It was clear that bing knew exactly what I was looking for. Check out the search results!

You’ll notice that it starts off with images which is really cool because it confirms that it’s the right camera. On the left it has various options I can select from including: Reviews, Accessories, Manual, Repair, Lenses, and Videos. Pretty slick. So I was looking for a manual in this case. I simply click on the Manual selection, and the first result is the correct manual from Nikon. Let’s try the same search with Google.

All I get from Google is a ton of advertisers and links to buy the camera. Not at all what I’m looking for. I click into a few of the links to see if they have the manual and they don’. They also don’t really have pictures or reviews easily accessible anywhere. Next I’ll try a more specific search I guess like “Nikon D60 Manual”.

So I tried to find my manual again, this time I get a paid link to the Nikon web site, followed by something that looks like it should be the manual. I click on it, and it’s definitely not my manual. I scroll down a bit, and no manual. So I go to the Nikon site and start looking through it and about 15 clicks later I find what I’m looking for.

With Bing I not only found exactly what I was looking for, but the interface was so simple I was able to find the manual in two clicks by only typing “Nikon D60”. With Google I typed in exactly what I wanted, and it took me 15 clicks and about 5 minutes. Google gets an Epic Fail, Bing clearly wins.

Let’s try another search for “Disney”. If I am searching for Disney I am probably looking for: Games, Movies, Disney Store, Shows, and Schedules. Guess what bing lets me filter on super easily! Check it out below and tell me it’s not an awesome search result:

Google’s results for “Disney” are very lacking. Pretty much everything that shows up is not what I’m looking for, and its presented in a pretty static interface that reminds me of the 1990’s to be honest.

So on basic search that typical users will perform, Bing’s results are ridiculously better.

Comparing Bing Interface with Google Interface

Winner: Bing

Let’s go on a tour of some of the Bing features. A nice one to start with is the new preview feature that allows you to see useful information pertaining to a web site before you click the link. I’m not talking about a useless thumbnail that you can’t see well. This is actually relevant information, including links to let you drill into the site, before even going to the web site.

You’ll notice it’s pretty slick. I just hover of the right side of the result, and I get details on the web site, with links that let me drill into the site right away. This is actually a huge time saver that should get rid of many of the “Click and Back” usage that many users do today on search engines. The really nice thing is how well this feature works and how easy it is to read.

I really love the filtering options you get with bing as well. They are freaking awesome. I can very easily filter my result set on anything I would like, and the search results change, and in some case the interface changes slightly to present the data better. But the cool thing is that you feel like you are still on the same page. With Google as you go to different Google applications, you feel like you are definitely in a different place, and can’t easily get back to where you were.

Comparing Bing Image Search with Google

Winner: Bing

I love the image searching because it’s so integrated with the rest of my experience. Clicking on Images easily filters my results and shows me Images. I can easily hover over the images, and as I hover over them they seem to “Pop Out” at me. I get more information on the image as well.

If I click on the image, I get a listing of all the images had previously which is pretty cool, and I can also see the image in larger view if I like, all within the same interface.

You also get some easy to use options for the Bing Image Search that aren’t hidden. They are easy to see, and you can filter your results very easily.

The display options are easy to see again, right at the top right corner, and work really fast.

With all these slight improvements and tweaks, Bing beats Google hands down with its image searching capabilities. Try the same searches with Google and you get lots pretty quickly.

Comparing Bing Video Search with Google

Winner: Bing

The Bing interface is awesome to use. Probably the most amazing feature in Bing is how the search results change dynamically depending on what you’re searching for. Let’s try a different search this time and look up one of my favourite bands, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

A simple search for “Red Hot Chili Peppers” in bing gives me an awesome result set back. It shows me images of the Peppers, followed by their web site and some other very relevant results. Along the left I can filter based on Videos, Interviews, Tour, Albums, Lyrics, Songs, and Images. Let’s check out the videos section.

The video’s section is pretty cool for a few reasons. One is I can easily go back to any other filter, or my main search on the same user interface. Google makes you jump to different sites and you get lost really easily and end up pressing the back button in your browser a couple of times. One of the other awesome features that you have to really see, is I can just hover over the videos, and they start playing. In Google in order to see if I found the right video, I actually have to click the video which takes me to the video web site, and then see if it’s the right one.

If I want to play the video it’s super easy, I just click the video, and the player starts up right within bing! No need to leave the bing site. The cool thing is they have this working for all the video sites I tried including AOL, YouTube, MySpace, Soapbox, and Dailymotion. Pretty cool, AND it didn’t make me get lost in my search quest.

I tried the above within Google, but to be honest it was so horrible, I’m not even going to bother putting in the screenshots. It’s one of those things that make you think that the only reason you liked Google was because there was nothing better.

Conclusion

I really wanted to give some props to Google at some point in this article so that it wasn’t completely lopsided, however there was no way. Bing’s search is ridiculously better than Google Search in pretty much every way possible.

It’s really one of those things where I’m sitting here thinking to myself “I remember when I was telling everyone to go check out Google its results are awesome”, and everyone did that back in the day, and it really made Google what it is today. I totally see myself wanting to tell people to check out Bing, and at the end of the day, it’s the word of mouth that a product is amazing that is going to mean success or failure for Bing. I know personally, I have a huge network of friends involved in every area of technology; I’m super excited to show them how cool Bing is. They might not listen to a television commercial, but they will listen if I tell them to check out Bing.

With the features Bing offers, I find it hard to believe Bing isn’t going to catch on like wildfire. It took Google to make Microsoft better, now it will take Microsoft to make Google better. It’s clear from using Bing that Microsoft is a different company now that it has been infused with usability experts and designers. The sleeping giant has clearly woken up.

In the end, users will win this war no matter what happens, and that is what has me more excited than anything!

Technorati Tags: Bing,Microsoft,Google

The Future of Search

2009-05-26T02:14:46Z

Microsoft is getting ready for battle with Google with Bing.com. Internally Bing has been talked about as Kumo.com. Over the next few months, Microsoft is going to spend $100 million dollars on promoting Bing.com. But what is Microsoft bringing to the table with Bing.com? Microsoft has certainly done their homework over the last several years. They seem to think they have a great product now, let’s see how well it does against Google.com!

Google’s big mistake was declaring search almost solved at 90% to 95%. Search is so far from being solved it’s not even funny. Microsoft did its own research and found that 42% of all searches need to be refined. 25% of all searches result in the user hitting the “back” button. I wrote an article called “Who Wants To Beat Google?” a few months ago, and it sounds like Bing is going to have many of these features which is great, but there is still something I’m hoping Microsoft is not forgetting. The Developers and Webmasters!

Don’t forget the Developer Tools

One of the things that has always set Microsoft apart from other software companies is their developer tools. By creating awesome tools for developers to use to build on the Microsoft platform, Microsoft has created an army of developers that depend on Microsoft products being installed on computers. They in turn promote Microsoft to companies, friends, and family. Google has done the same thing with search. They provide a ridiculous amounts of tools for SEO experts to develop new tactics, monitor results, create advertising campaigns, check the health of their web sites, and so much more.

Let’s take a look at what Google offers web developers and webmasters:

These aren’t all the tools by any means, but you get the point. The great thing about all these tools is that you can sign up and be up and running with these tools extremely fast! Google has invested a large amount of money in building up all these tools, and have created an entire ecosystem surrounding their search engine. It’s not just about a search engine! Just like it’s not just about having the best operating system, Microsoft needs to remember that it’s not just about having the best search engine. It’s about having the best development tools, the best developers, and the best partnerships.

It was awesome to watch Netscape and Microsoft do battle back in the 90’s. I’m looking forward to this battle, as it’s only going to benefit the consumers and help advance search even faster!

5 Tips to Becoming a Development Rock Star

2009-05-25T05:05:43Z

So you want to become a software development Rock Star? I had someone ask me the other day “How can I become a software development rock star?”. The only true way of course is to practice, practice, practice. But what about some easy to follow tips? I had come up with a few in the last year that I wanted to share, so I decided I would put the tips all in one place for him to read.

The 10 Commandments of Great User Experience Design

Starting a new software development project in the next little while? Praying and hoping that it goes well? Are you worrying about all the little software development intricacies like: Making sure you have a proper source control, ensuring you have a continuous integration environment, making sure you have great developers and making sure they are happy? If you are, you probably haven’t remembered to pay attention to the most important part of the software development process. The User Interface and the User Experience.

Software Development Top 30 Mistakes

I have been developing software and web applications for nearly 11 years now. Software development has come a long way since the days of Binary, Cobol, etc. What still fascinates me about software development is the same mistakes made before, are still made today. Below are the top 30 Mistakes that are made within the software development process. It’s amazing to see that none of these have anything to do with the language itself.

How To Kill Your To Do List, Developer Style!

Are you one of those people that creates to do list’s, action plans, project plans, and seems to have millions of things to do? There is actually a simple “Hack” you can use today to get your life back on track. I just finished reading David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: Books: David Allen, and have taken some great ideas from the book! I highly recommend reading it. Follow along with me on this journey to getting more stuff done than you ever imagined, developer style!

What Makes Version 1.0 Software Hard

I’m always puzzled by how hard software can be to write the first version of any software product. Software in itself is always hard, for more reasons than I can write in a blog entry. But what makes Version 1.0 so hard? I’ll give you a hint, most of it has nothing to do with your developers. It has more to do with the process of innovation.

How To Finish A Big Software Project And Be The Hero

We’ve all been there! The huge beast software project that just won’t end/die. In fact Microsoft is constantly getting themselves into this trouble. Vista, SQL Server, XP, all became these huge projects, that in the end, had to have massive features cut, and new leaders appointed to save the day and ship products! At the end of the day, if you are constantly building and building, and never shipping, you’re sunk! How do you get a big software project out of the water and become the software development hero? I’ll tell you how…

Silverlight vs. Flash SmackDown

2009-05-21T16:01:59Z

The Silverlight vs. Flash SmackDown was a smashing success!

Thanks to everyone that made it out to the Silverlight vs. Flash SmackDown event yesterday in Winnipeg. It was a lot of fun to present the content on the Silverlight side, and have some friendly banter back and fourth with Darren Osadchuks who presented Flash.

We had nearly 200 people in attendance and completely jam packed the Carol Shields Auditorium at the Millennium Library. In fact we had to get an “overflow” room setup last minute that we streamed the event to via the new web site: TechSmackDown.com. TechSmackDown will have all the event video footage and PowerPoint’s posted shortly.

Everyone was glued to their seats for the entire 2 and a half hour event. In fact when asked if anyone wanted to take a break, nobody raised their hands. A ton of prizes were given out thanks to our sponsors: Anvil Digital, Protegra, Microsoft, redgate, Apress, O’Reilly, Wrox, and CDot Networks. The event was the first event put on by all three tech user groups in the city: Winnipeg.net User Group, Flash in the Peg, and New Media Manitoba.

If you can’t wait to play with some of the technologies that were shown last night, make sure to check out: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/ You can download trial versions of Expression Studio Tools, or even try out Expression Blend 3 Preview!

So for those that want to check out the demo’s for themselves, lets do a quick run through right now.

Sketchflow Rocks The House

I think Sketchflow is probably the single most innovative technology to come out of Microsoft in the last decade. I know it sounds crazy but its just true! After all the innovation we had done in software, 70% of all IT projects still fail! Sketchflow is going to change that! I started by showing how to draw with wiggly styles in Sketchflow and present the client with options. We then moved into creating documentation from our sketches like magic! I’m pretty sure I saw tears of happiness in most people’s eyes, followed by some crazy applause!

We then moved on to actually creating an awesome application by importing a PhotoShop file, and then making an application in Silverlight using blend that followed all the styles that were created in PhotoShop! Many thanks to Jon Harris for getting me ready to rock for this demo.

Silverligh Dominates Video

I showed how the YouTube experience of watching Big Buck Bunny was pretty bad, as was Vimeo. I then loaded up Expression Media Encoder and showed off all the amazing features it had and produced a pretty cool video. I then showed the new Big Buck Bunny video with Adaptive Streaming with Silverlight. People couldn’t believe the quality and the features it had. Skipping, rewinding, amazing quality of video… running on a Mac! On Internet at a Library!

Some other great Silverlight Examples

In closing I tried to show off some of the great implementations out there that take advantage of Silverlight! Here are some of them:

The message was clear, designers and developers need to find a way to work together better! Silverlight and the Expression tools offers something unique to the equation with Sketchflow, which will launch in Expression Studio 3.

Fun was had by all! Check out the massive crowd! And this is just one room, the other overflow room had another 30 or so people watching across the hall on a live stream!

Darren did an awesome job explaining the entire Adobe Flash Platform. As a .net guy, I must admit it was pretty impressive as well.

Here’s a wide angle shot of the crowd! Our goal was to get designer and developers in the same room and really pump them up about building awesome web applications! Silverlight vs. Flash was the title of the event, but at the end of the day, I think it was really clear that everyone is going to win in the Microsoft vs. Flash Battle of the Titans.

As a reminder to everyone that was at the event, the slides and video of the event will be posted very shortly at TechSmackDown.com.

Battle of the Titans: The Silverlight and Flash SmackDown

2009-05-03T14:30:02Z

See Adobe Flash go head to head with Microsoft Silverlight, maybe walk away with an XBOX 360.

Finally, SmackDown has come back to Winnipeg on May 19^th, 2009! For the first time under one roof, New Media Manitoba, Flash in the Peg, and the Winnipeg .net User Group bring you The Silverlight and Flash SmackDown! This is, without a doubt the most electrifying topic in web development today! We are about to shake things up and end the fall season with a bang! Developers and Designers finally under one roof! A merger of design and development, with one lucky attendee walking away with an XBOX 360! Register here today, spaces will fill up fast! We now have over $12,000 in prizes to give away!

The Silverlight Story

What is Silverlight anyway? Microsoft MVP Miguel Carrasco will walk you through 5 powerful scenarios that will leave you going “I didn’t know you could do that with Silverlight”. Learn how Sketch Flow will forever change the way you build your application prototypes. See how powerful enterprise application development tools like Visual Studio Team Systems integrate directly with Expression Blend and Silverlight. Learn how important Designer and Developer Workflow is and how Microsoft Silverlight uses the most advanced Adobe Photoshop Importer you have ever seen. If that wasn’t enough, learn how the next generation of video on the web is being powered by Microsoft’s Silverlight H.264 Video Streaming support.

The Flash Platform

Think Flash is good for just pretty animations? Think again! Adobe Flash is the heart of the Flash Platform, a set of tools and technologies that provide everything you need to create exciting Rich Internet Applications and content, from the browser to the desktop to mobile. Darren Osadchuk from Flash in the Peg, Winnipeg’s Adobe User Group, will introduce you to the Flash Platform. He’ll show you some of the new animation tools in Flash CS4, how Flash integrates with other Adobe Creative Suite 4 applications, and what the Flash Platform brings to RIA development for the web and the desktop.

This is the event of the year you won’t want to miss! Flash, Silverlight, Adobe, Microsoft. Who knows what could happen, so come out and meet your other half! After all designers need developers, and developers need designers! Two immovable objects are about to collide, and hopefully everyone will be enlightened to the Flash and Silverlight Connection! Stick around till the end, and you could win an XBOX 360!

It’s gonna be a slobberknocker! Don’t miss it! May 19^th, 2009 @ 6pm at Carol Shields Auditorium on the 2nd floor of the Millennium Library.
Register Today!

We have moved the event to the Millennium Library to accommodate the crazy response! Just go to the Carol Shields Auditorium on the 2nd floor of the Millennium Library. Parking is super easy now! Spaces are still limited!

View PDF (Floor Plans | Map of Parking & Bus Stops Near Millennium Library)

Miguel Carrasco – Anvil Digital
Miguel Carrasco is a Microsoft MVP in Expression Studio. Miguel has spoken at various technology events including recently TechDays 2008. He was also recently a judge on the Microsoft Ignite IT 2009 panel and recently selected as Web Development Track co-lead for Microsoft TechDays 2009. Miguel works with an impressive team of developers and designers at Anvil Digital that create impressive applications using ASP.net AJAX, Silverlight, WPF, Flash, and FLEX. An enthusiastic speaker, Miguel loves getting the crowd involved and creating excitement about the tools, technology, and best practices to building amazing applications.

Darren Osadchuks – Ludicrous Software
Darren Osadchuk owns and operates Ludicrous Software. In business since 2005, Ludicrous Software develops games and interactive content for the web and mobile platforms. Until recently, Darren was a civil servant for the Manitoba government, but is much, much happier now. Darren is an Adobe Certified Expert in Flash Lite, and was a speaker at Adobe MAX 2008. Darren also manages Flash in the Peg, Winnipeg, Manitoba’s Adobe User Group.

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Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Flash,Adobe,Microsoft

EnergizeIT coming to a city near you

2009-04-16T18:04:27Z

EnergizeIT 2009 is making its way across Canada! Microsoft is making huge investments in the community, trying to make sure that everyone has the best skills and training possible. I was recently at the MVP Summit in Redmond and had a chance to learn firsthand about Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, and Windows Azure. Now you will get the chance to hear what is coming in the next few months from Microsoft.

EnergizeIT 2009 is a national series of events that are intended to spread technology to everyone and let you know “What’s Possible!”. Come out and share your success stories, learn from other people, and connect with local experts in the fields of technology and software development. EnergizeIT will be coming to Winnipeg with a series of events occurring from April 14th to April 16th.

Winnipeg – April 14th, 2009 – User Group Connection: Future of the Platform

In this complimentary session we will discuss Windows 7, Windows Server® 2008 R2, and show you how they can be integrated into your current environment and help solve some of today’s challenges around application compatibility, remote access and branch offices. You’ll learn how you can help reduce bandwidth costs between your head office and the branch, how to leverage new virtualization technologies to solve application compatibility issues and discover how you can finally eliminate the VPN. Join your local user group and Microsoft for an evening of exploration and demonstration of the future of the Windows-based platform and understand how to make use of the Springboard resources (http://www.microsoft.ca/springboard). Register Today!

Winnipeg – April 15th, 2009 – EnergizeIT: From the Client to the Cloud

This session will allow you to understand Microsoft’s Software+Services vision through a combination of presentation, demonstration, and discussion. Learn how you can collaborate more effectively and take your small and mid-sized business to the next level and accessible from virtually anywhere using the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. You will see Windows 7 in action and gain insight into how you can harness it in your environment. We will demonstrate how Windows 7 and Windows Live allow you to connect and collaborate with friends and family in ways you may not have thought of before. Find out how to develop applications that take advantage of Windows Azure Services providing new levels of scalability. Finally, discover how bringing together the power the Desktop with the flexibility of the Cloud will provide amazing opportunities for you to solve some difficult challenges ahead. Register Today!

Winnipeg – April 16th, 2009 – Install Fest for Windows 7

Have you been wanting to try Windows 7 yourself but hesitant to take the plunge alone? Come join your peers in the local community to re-discover the client. Rediscover Windows and see what all the fuss is about. See for yourself how Windows 7 will make your life better at work and at home.
Connect with your peers and exchange stories about how they’re looking to take advantage of what Windows 7 has to offer. Bring your own notebook, netbook, or desktop to install the latest available build of Windows 7 and re-ignite your passion for the PC. Register Today!

Google shares your private documents

2009-03-08T04:19:12Z

Could you imagine if your email suddenly became accessible to the world? What if your “My Documents” was accessible to people around the world without your permission. One thing is for sure, if Microsoft messed this up, there would be a revolt and everyone would lose their minds. In what is a massive beach of privacy, Google Docs and Spreadsheet has now been apparently sharing some user’s documents with people that were never granted access. At first I thought for sure the article that Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch published was a mistake, but Google has confirmed the incident by sending emails out to affected users.

Google email servers have gone down numerous times this year. Now they seem to have issues with files that are private being shared out to people. I realize that all these services are “free”, at least they are marketed as such, but they really aren’t. The cost is privacy, poor security, and downtime. Amazon has had its fair share of issues this year as well, taking down hundreds of thousands of sites and applications that used their cloud platform in the process.

While I fully believe cloud computing is the future, I also strongly believe that not everything should be “in the cloud”. There are certain things that belong in my home, in the safety of my own computer, and there are things that belong in the cloud. When Ray Ozzie of Microsoft announced their cloud computing vision, I was relieved that finally a company had it right.

I’ve been using “cloud computing” for a while now, even with my office documents and some personal files. It’s pretty easy! I just load up word, I save to Office Live Workspace, and that’s it. Here is a screenshot from my computer at home, saving a file to the cloud. So simple.

In the next few months, we should see Azure hit center stage as Microsoft begins to rollout its full plan for the platform. It will allow software developers and companies to create applications “In The Cloud” without having to worry about things like disk space, availability, and hardware security. Azure will take advantage of all the things Microsoft has learned over nearly 30 years. Visual Studio Developers will easily be able to start creating applications within minutes. Organizations that have invested in highly skilled software engineers that create these applications will be able to start building applications in the cloud easily.

Personally when it comes time for our company to choose our cloud computing strategy, I know exactly which company I am going to trust to be there for us when we need them. It has nothing to do with my own “biased’” opinion. It has everything to do with the track record of companies that are trying to offer cloud computing platforms today. From my perspective, and hopefully from all of yours, they just don’t cut it.

Here is the email that Google just sent out to its users. Imagine if Microsoft sent something like this out. Would you accept it? Why accept it when it’s Google?

Dear Google Docs user,

We wanted to let you know about a recent issue with your Google Docs account. We’ve identified and fixed a bug which may have caused you to share some of your documents without your knowledge. This inadvertent sharing was limited to people with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document. The issue only occurred if you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, selected multiple documents and presentations from the documents list and changed the sharing permissions. This issue affected documents and presentations, but not spreadsheets.

To help remedy this issue, we have used an automated process to remove collaborators and viewers from the documents that we identified as being affected. Since the impacted documents are now accessible only to you, you will need to re-share the documents manually. For your reference, we’ve listed below the documents identified as being affected.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this issue may have caused. We want to assure you that we are treating this issue with the highest priority.

The Google Docs Team

Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2009

2009-03-01T18:47:55Z

Seattle and Redmond are buzzing with the Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2009! I got in Saturday morning and had a chance to spend some time with a good friend all day that works on the MSN team. This week about 1,500 Microsoft MVP’s will converge at the Microsoft corporate headquarters and engage is awesome discussions with a ton of Microsoft’s key product teams. MVP’s will share their real world experiences with the product teams, and also have the opportunity to sit in on some amazing presentations provided by Microsoft (about 680 sessions to chose from).

I personally don’t know of any other company in the world as committed to customer feedback, and listening to their customers as Microsoft. A lot of the critical and objective feedback that will be given over the next few days will ensure that the Microsoft products constantly evolve and push the software industry to constant evolution.

How big is the event? 97 countries are represented, 37 languages spoken, and about 90 different Microsoft technologies will be discussed.

I’m all registered up and have my MVP kit in hand. Since I got in yesterday, I had a chance to tour around the Microsoft Campus’s and check out some of the cool sights in Seattle. Today should be an exciting day as hundreds of MVP’s head to the Washington State Convention and Trade Center to register for the event. Then the day kicks off right after lunch with some optional side sessions. I’ll be heading over to a presentation on Azure around 1pm and then going to pop in for a session with the Windows International Online team. Later on in the day the welcome keynotes get going with Toby Richards, General Manager of Microsoft’s Community Support Services and Rich Kaplan, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Customer & Partner Advocacy.

I will be pretty busy twittering and taking pictures over the next few days, not sure how much time I will actually have to blog.

You can read the Microsoft PressPass official press release here:

1,500 Global Tech Professionals Take Center Stage at 2009 Microsoft MVP Global Summit

More Pictures from MVP Global Summit:

Technorati Tags: Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2009

NCAA March Madness Streaming with Silverlight

2009-02-17T06:31:28Z

Ever tried watching a popular sporting event online only to be disappointed at the poor quality? Well this year CBS will be streaming the NCAA Men’s Basketball March Madness Tournament with Microsoft Silverlight. With the Silverlight player, CBS will be able to send streams of up to 1.5 mpbs to millions at home (or at work) watching! For those that think this is just a publicity stunt, please remember that last year the NCAA March Madness On Demand had 4.8 million viewers and generated $23 million in advertising revenue.

In previous years CBS had to build “waiting rooms” for people that were too late to in line to watch the games. This year will be very different. With Facebook integration, expect this viewing experience to be unlike any other you have experienced to date.

Silverlight has been gaining ground in the last year, despite some comments from Adobe that Silverlight has “fizzled”. There are now over 100 million installations of Silverlight. Some high profile events have been brought to you exclusively via Silverlight. Obama’s Inauguration, Olympics in Beijing, and many other sporting events. However, where Silverlight will truly take off is when business’s start to realize that the User Interface is an integral aspect of what makes software successful. Since I can remember, businesses around the world have mainly focused on the “back-end” to software applications. The User Interface and User Experience has always been an afterthought. Is it a surprise that nearly 80% of Software Development projects can be considered failures?

When businesses realize that the User Experience is important enough to have talented designers and user experience experts work on them instead of your typical software developer, you will see technologies that enable the imagination to run wild take over. Buildings don’t use the same architect that designs structure and support, to design the aesthetics of a building. That would be disastrous. Why then do we expect software developers that don’t like design, to design user interfaces? You either need UX experts, or you need your developers to become UX experts. And they will need new technologies to make their ideas reality!

These technologies include Silverlight, WPF, and other Adobe competitors. But when it comes to business applications, Microsoft tends to have the edge. In the next few years Flash will become more of a web toy and Silverlight will become a real development platform. That’s my prediction anyway.

Getting Back into the Groove

2009-02-16T04:39:42Z

Finally after almost a year, I am starting to get a routine going that includes my beautiful baby. Dominic has changed my life for the better, and I feel like I’ve learned more in the last year than I have any other year in such a short time span. But now it’s time to get back into shape! I started working out and eating right again last week and its been awesome!

I’ve lost 10 pounds and already starting to feel a million times better! I’ve also started going to bed at a decent hour, and getting up early to workout. With my new found energy I hope to get back into other things i had to drop like blogging! Between Dominic, helping my lovely wife Erin, and work, I haven’t had much extra time to spend blogging. Although I have had time to help out with the Winnipeg .net User Group, speak at TechDays in Winnipeg, and helping out with the Ignite IT Awards.

The next bit of the year should be pretty entertaining! Dominic will turn a year old, I’m heading off to the MVP Summit in Redmond, one of our biggest clients Price Industries is having their National Sales Meeting, and Anvil Digital will launch another 5 new products both externally and internally for clients. No matter what I am going to stay committed to eating right, working out, and doing the things I love!

Anyway, get ready for some more blogging, and a much improved 2009! By the way you can follow my workouts at Gyminee.com! It’s an awesome site that lets you track what you eat, and what you do throughout the week! Great for keeping track of your progress and motivating you.

Watch Obama’s Inauguration

2009-01-20T17:21:24Z

The eyes of the world will be on Barack Obama today as he takes the oath of the office to become the 44th President of the United States. Over a million people will be at the event. With the advances in technology in the last few years, Barack Obama’s inauguration will be the most well documented inauguration in history. Social Networking sites and tools will all be a buzz for the entire day. Cell phone networks will be working overtime. What is the best way to watch Obama’s Inauguration?

The Moment will be a pretty cool site to check out over the next few hours. Photosynth allows a series of two-dimensional pictures to be stitched and interpolated into a three-dimensional representation of a moment in time. The more angles and photos, the more complete the rendering. I’ve made a few myself in the past and the output is very impressive!

Also if you want to just watch the live stream on the official Presidential Inauguration Committee stream, make sure you go to their live Barack Obama Inauguration Live Feed. The stream is powered by Microsoft Silverlight technologies.

Silverlight and the UFC

2008-12-30T06:20:47Z

I love the UFC. It’s the one sporting event I never miss. I’ve always been a fan of the Martial Arts since I was a little boy and my dad was a bronze medalist in the Chilean National Championship’s. Now that MMA is going more mainstream, more and more people are getting exposure to the Mixed Martial Arts sports.

This weekend was the fight card of they ear for the UFC, with UFC 92, The Ultimate 2008. Frank Mir vs. Noguiera was an instant classic. I wanted to watch the weigh ins on Friday night, but I was pretty busy with Christmas still so I missed it.

I was pleasantly surprised on Saturday when I logged onto the site, and noticed they had launched a new Silverlight version of the weigh ins that had an interactive chat window as well as a live stream and recorded stream that you could watch.

While other videos on the www.ufc.com site are still using the Flash technology, it’s nice to see another big online video site testing the Silverlight capabilities. Now that Silverlight 2.0 is out, I am hoping to see a lot more tracking from this technology in the months and years to come.